No Ruling Yet In Connecticut Immigration Case Seeking To Reunite Two Children With Their Parents

Joshua Perry, of Connecticut Legal Services, and Dr. Andres Martin, of Yale School of Medicine Child Study Center, talk about a hearing in federal court today urging a judge to reunite two children now in Connecticut who were seperated from their parents while at detention centers in Texas.

Joshua Perry, of Connecticut Legal Services, and Dr. Andres Martin, of Yale School of Medicine Child Study Center, talk about a hearing in federal court today urging a judge to reunite two children now in Connecticut who were seperated from their parents while at detention centers in Texas.

Lawyers representing two children being held in Connecticut after being separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border urged a federal judge Wednesday to reunite the minors with their parents as quickly as possible.

Judge Victor A. Bolden presided over the four-hour hearing, but did not rule Wednesday afternoon. He continued the cases until next week.

“These are challenging issues legally,” Bolden said. “I just want to say that whatever the court does, we are engaging in an exercise to uphold the law.”

During the hearing in U.S. District Court in Bridgeport, Marisol Orihuela, a Yale professor working on the case, said the plaintiffs want the court to rule to have the children — identified as J.S.R. and V.F.B. — and their parents released immediately. The children’s parents appeared in court through a video chat from a detention facility in Pearsall, Texas.

“The relief we seek today for J.S.R. and V.F.B., ages 9 and 14, is to be reunified in liberty and outside of custody, immediately,” she said. “Court intervention is so necessary and we believe it is warranted right now.”

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According to the lawsuit filed on behalf of the children last week in U.S. District Court in New Haven, J.S.R. is a 9-year-old boy from Honduras. He and his father crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in June, escaping gang violence. The pair were detained at a facility in Texas before J.S.R. was brought to Connecticut.

The second case involves a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border in May with her mother. They fled their native country after the girl’s stepfather was murdered and were detained after crossing the border.

Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant

"It's good that they are being well cared for, it is good that they are playing, it is good that they have moments of comfort, but the fact remains that they are not with their parents and they are suffering terribly," said Dr. Andres Martin, of Yale New Haven Children's Hospital

"It's good that they are being well cared for, it is good that they are playing, it is good that they have moments of comfort, but the fact remains that they are not with their parents and they are suffering terribly," said Dr. Andres Martin, of Yale New Haven Children's Hospital (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant)

According to court filings, both children were forcibly taken from their parents at the border and brought to Noank Community Support Services in Connecticut, where they are now being cared for.

To make their case, the lawyers for the children presented testimony that the separations have traumatized the children and caused depression, anxiety and emotional distress.

“Both of these children suffer from PTSD and my recommendation would be reunification with their parents as expeditiously as possible,” testified Dr. Andres Martin, director of medicine at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital.

Martin said he would have grave concerns if the children were not reunited with their parents quickly.

“The reunification should be in a place with support, freedom and all the trappings of a normal life,” Martin said.

Lawyers for the children also argued that a recent ruling in California that ordered the Trump administration to reunite all separated immigrant families by July 26 does not prohibit the court from reuniting J.S.R. and V.F.B. with their parents ahead of the deadline. The California case — Ms. L v. ICE — ordered the government to take all 3,000 children separated from their families and reunite them with their parents within 30 days. Children under 5 were ordered to be reunited by July 10.

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“The proposal in that order is not to wait to reunite those families until then,” Orihuela argued. “The July 26 deadline might make sense in other circumstances, but not this one.”

Orihuela said that the government knows where both J.S.R. and V.F.B. are and knows where their parents are being held.

“There is not significant evidence that the government will complete reunification by July 26,” she said. “Our position is the court has the authority to order the release of the parents in this case and reunify them with their children.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle McConaghy told the judge the government has a plan to reunify all parents and children by the deadline. She also said that an order to release the parents was outside of the court’s jurisdiction.

“In the moments before coming to court today, we learned of the plans for reunification by July 26,” McConaghy said. “Health and Human Services will bring the children to two residential centers in Texas and reunify them. It is the government’s intention to have all 3,000 children through that process by July 26.”

McConaghy also said that the U.S. attorney has been pressing the government to reunite J.S.R. and V.F.B. with their parents before the court-ordered deadline.

“It is our hope it does not take until July 26,” she said.

Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant

Eric Cruz-Lopez speaks during a demonstration outside the federal courthouse in Bridgeport in support of two kids separated from their parents by the Trump administration at the U.S.-Mexico border, and who are now being held in Connecticut.

Eric Cruz-Lopez speaks during a demonstration outside the federal courthouse in Bridgeport in support of two kids separated from their parents by the Trump administration at the U.S.-Mexico border, and who are now being held in Connecticut. (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant)

Ahead of Wednesday’s hearing, dozens of activists arrived outside of the courthouse in Bridgeport. Carrying banners, and in many cases surrounded by their own children, members of Unidad Latina en Accion, Connecticut Students for a Dream and other groups decried family separations at the border.

“Everyone here wants the children to be reunited with their families,” activist Jonathan Gonzalez Cruz said.

Vanessa Suarez, an organizer of the rally, said the children in Connecticut and across the nation deserve better treatment from the government.

“What these children are going through, they deserve to be with their parents,” she said. “They came here together, they sought asylum together and they deserve to be together.”

Suarez said activists will be watching the court ruling and will hold them responsible.

“We are going to watch how these courthouses are complicit with this administration,” she said.